Biden Announces Release Of U.S. Hostage Abducted In Kabul More Than Two Years Ago
Biden Announces Release Of U.S. Hostage Abducted In Kabul More Than Two Years Ago https://digitalalaskanews.com/biden-announces-release-of-u-s-hostage-abducted-in-kabul-more-than-two-years-ago/
correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Bashir Noorzai had been held in Guantánamo Bay. He was serving his life sentence in a federal penitentiary. The article has been corrected.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — U.S. hostage Mark Frerichs, a civilian contractor who was abducted in Kabul over two years ago, was released in exchange for an Afghan detainee held in U.S. federal prison, a top Taliban official announced Monday.
Frerichs’s family welcomed his release in a statement, saying they were “grateful and excited to learn that he has been freed,” after being held for more than 2½ years.
“I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. Our family has prayed for this each day,” Charlene Cakora, his sister, said in the statement from Camden Advisory Group, which has been advocating for his release. “We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us.”
President Biden, in a statement, announced Frerichs’s release but made no mention of the prisoner swap.
“Today, we have secured the release of Mark Frerichs, and he will soon be home. Mark was taken in Afghanistan in January, 2020 and held for 31 months,” Biden said. “His release is the culmination of years of tireless work by dedicated public servants across our government and other partner governments, and I want to thank them for all that effort.”
The president added that “bringing the negotiations that led to Mark’s freedom to a successful resolution required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly.
Biden said he had spoken to Frerichs’s sister and that the focus would be on his health, safe return and transition back into society.
Frerichs’s release was the subject of negotiations between senior U.S. officials and the Taliban leading up to the signing of the U.S. withdrawal agreement in Doha, Qatar, and in the months that followed after the Biden administration oversaw the end of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan last year.
As the withdrawal neared without a deal securing his release, his family and advocates feared that the United States would lose all leverage to free him. But a senior administration official said Monday that “bringing Mark home has been a top priority for President Biden and his national security team.”
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the prisoner exchange publicly, added that Biden’s decision to grant clemency for the Afghan detainee in exchange for Frerichs’s freedom was “difficult.”
The released detainee, Bashir Noorzai (also known as Haji Bashir Noorzai) — a warlord and drug trafficker with ties to the Taliban — was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to life in federal prison in 2005 after being lured to the United States.
“We welcome the release of Haji Bashir, an Afghan who spent 17 years in the United States. This will open a new chapter in the bilateral relations between the United States and Afghanistan,” acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi announced at a news conference in Kabul that was broadcast by local television outlets.
“We have been persistent in our efforts to free [Noorzai], and now he is with us in his own country,” Muttaqi continued. He said the two men were swapped at Kabul’s international airport.
Since the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan, the Biden administration has not formally recognized the group. The two sides have repeatedly clashed over the Taliban’s treatment of women and approach to civil liberties and the fate of billions of dollars in U.S.-held Afghan national reserves.
Last week, the Taliban condemned a move by the United States to redirect $3.5 billion of the reserves to a fund run in part by Swiss government officials and Afghan economic experts. The move “without any input from Afghanistan is unacceptable and a violation of international norms,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the announcement.
But Monday’s news of the swap could signal improving relations between the two sides.
George reported from Islamabad.
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Get Ready For A Bunch Of Sore-Loser Republicans Claiming 2022 Is Rigged
Get Ready For A Bunch Of Sore-Loser Republicans Claiming 2022 Is Rigged https://digitalalaskanews.com/get-ready-for-a-bunch-of-sore-loser-republicans-claiming-2022-is-rigged/
Former President Donald Trump embraces Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake at a ‘Save America’ rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona.
Nearly two-thirds of Republicans in key midterm races won’t commit to accepting their election results if they lose, an ominous sign that attacks on the democratic process will grow even more severe this fall.
The Washington Post surveyed both Democratic and Republican candidates in 19 Senate and gubernatorial races, and 12 of those candidates wouldn’t answer or refused to commit to respecting their states’ results.
Republican candidates for governor or Senate in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas refused to say that they would accept this year’s result. That includes key gubernatorial races in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as key Senate contests in Arizona, Florida, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
In contrast, all 18 of the Democrats who responded to the Post said they’d accept this year’s results. Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s campaign was the only one who didn’t respond.
This isn’t a total shock. Most of these candidates have already said they think the 2020 election was rigged against former President Donald Trump.
They’re far from alone: As VICE News previously reported, nearly three quarters of the GOP candidates running for governor, Senate, attorney general and secretary of state in six key swing states have refused to accept their states’ election results. That includes eight out of the 10 candidates for secretary of state and attorney general in those states.
Some of these candidates already pulled this anti-democratic stunt. During the primary, both Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem said they wouldn’t accept the results if they lost their elections.
This could prove deeply damaging for democracy, particularly because many of them will have ample time to undercut voters’ faith in the results. Many states have moved towards more lenient mail voting laws in recent years, and mail ballots often take longer to count. Some states’ voting processes will look much like they did pre-pandemic rather than 2020, but states like Nevada and Pennsylvania permanently changed their laws in recent years to make it easier to vote, at the expense of a rapid vote count.
This can slow down the results and give bad-faith actors a chance to claim, without any real evidence, that the election is being stolen from them.
If candidates do this, it will further undermine voters’ trust in the democratic election system. And while candidates who refuse to accept a loss can be safely ignored if they don’t have a huge political following—like when Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin refused to concede in 2019—if Trump backs them up, it could create havoc.
Trump has encouraged candidates to do this before: He encouraged Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz to just declare victory in order to make it “much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they ‘just happened to find,’” and insisted that Arizona GOP Sen. Martha McSally had the election stolen from her when she lost fair-and-square in 2018.
The only Republicans who did say they’d definitely accept an election loss were Oz, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Nevada gubernatorial nominee Joe Lombardo, and Senate nominees Joe O’Dea of Colorado, Herschel Walker of Georgia, Adam Laxalt of Nevada, J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Interestingly, Laxalt, Vance and Walker all previously said they think that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.
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U.S. Traffic Deaths In First Half 2022 Hit 16-Year High
U.S. Traffic Deaths In First Half 2022 Hit 16-Year High https://digitalalaskanews.com/u-s-traffic-deaths-in-first-half-2022-hit-16-year-high/
U.S. traffic deaths rose 0.5% in the first half of 2022 to 20,175, the highest number killed in the period since 2006, according to an early estimate released by U.S. regulators.
Traffic deaths have jumped after pandemic lockdowns ended as more drivers engaged in unsafe behavior. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Monday in the second quarter, traffic deaths fell 4.9%, the first decline in fatalities after seven consecutive quarters of year-over-year increases in fatalities but still substantially above pre-pandemic levels.
U.S. Traffic Deaths Hit 20-Year-High in Early 2022
As U.S. roads became less crowded during the pandemic, some motorists perceived police were less likely to issue tickets, experts say, likely resulting in riskier behavior on the roads.
NHTSA research indicates incidents of speeding and traveling without wearing seatbelts were higher than before the pandemic.
In 2021, pedestrians killed jumped 13% to 7,342, the most since 1981. The number of people on bicycles who were killed rose 5% to 985, the most since at least 1980, NHTSA said.
Pedestrian Fatalities Projected to Reach Highest Level in 40 Years
NHTSA lost its administrator earlier this month after Steve Cliff took a senior position with the California Air Resources Board and the agency is being run on an acting basis by its general counsel Ann Carlson, who said despite the second quarter decline “the number of people dying on roads in this country remains a crisis.”
Safety advocacy groups have urged the administration to move quickly to fill NHTSA’s top job, which was never filled under President Donald Trump.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters last week the administration is “actively working” to select a nominee to fill NHTSA’s top job.
Buttigieg said the United States needs safer drivers, vehicles, roads and speeds.
“These deaths are preventable, not inevitable, and we should act accordingly,” Buttigieg said on Monday in a statement.
Topics USA
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Stocks Up Slightly Ahead Of Federal Reserve Meeting | CNN Business
Stocks Up Slightly Ahead Of Federal Reserve Meeting | CNN Business https://digitalalaskanews.com/stocks-up-slightly-ahead-of-federal-reserve-meeting-cnn-business/
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Strong Words And Some Warnings As We Approach The Midterms Poynter
Strong Words And Some Warnings As We Approach The Midterms – Poynter https://digitalalaskanews.com/strong-words-and-some-warnings-as-we-approach-the-midterms-poynter/
We are now less than two months away from the midterm elections. Just over seven weeks to be exact. And while every election seems pivotal to the future of our country, that narrative seems especially true this time.
It does not feel like hyperbole to say that our democracy is hanging in the balance.
With that in mind, I’d like to point out several pieces of journalism published over the weekend that addressed what’s at stake.
First, the latest column from USA Today columnist Jill Lawrence: “If you care about your country and your rights, don’t vote for any Republicans in 2022.”
Lawrence writes, “It pains me to say this, but if you care about your rights and country, don’t vote for any Republicans in 2022 – even the officeholders who have stood up to Trump and the newcomers who pitch themselves as reality-based. All that counts is the R after their name. Their party is on a dark path and can’t be trusted to control any level of government.”
Extreme? Perhaps.
But, David Leonhardt’s latest piece for The New York Times is a thorough deep dive: “‘A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy.” Leonhardt sees two distinct threats.
Leonhardt writes, “The first threat is acute: a growing movement inside one of the country’s two major parties — the Republican Party — to refuse to accept defeat in an election.”
He then writes, “The second threat to democracy is chronic but also growing: The power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion.”
Leonhardt’s piece is a rather lengthy one, looking at the threats, how they were born, how they manifest themselves and what the consequences might be. It ends with this ominous passage: “The makeup of the federal government reflects public opinion less closely than it once did. And the chance of a true constitutional crisis — in which the rightful winner of an election cannot take office — has risen substantially. That combination shows that American democracy has never faced a threat quite like the current one.”
And as you consider Leonardt’s story, also check out this article from The New York Times’ Reid J. Epstein: “Echoing Trump, These Republicans Won’t Promise to Accept 2022 Results.”
Epstein writes, “When asked, six Trump-backed Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in midterm battlegrounds would not commit to accepting this year’s election results, and another five Republicans ignored or declined to answer a question about embracing the November outcome.”
Epstein adds, “The New York Times contacted Republican and Democratic candidates or their aides in 20 key contests for governor and the Senate. All of the Democrats said, or have said publicly, that they would respect the November results — including Stacey Abrams of Georgia, who refused to concede her 2018 defeat to Brian Kemp in the state’s race for governor. Mr. Kemp, now running against her for another term, ‘will of course accept the outcome of the 2022 election,’ said his press secretary, Tate Mitchell. But several Republicans endorsed by Mr. Trump are hesitant to say that they will not fight the results.”
The Washington Post had a similar warning. The Post’s Amy Gardner, Hannah Knowles, Colby Itkowitz and Annie Linskey wrote a story with this headline, “Republicans in key battleground races refuse to say they will accept results.”
The Post writers wrote, “In a survey by The Washington Post of 19 of the most closely watched statewide races in the country, the contrast between Republican and Democratic candidates was stark. While seven GOP nominees committed to accepting the outcomes in their contests, 12 either refused to commit or declined to respond. On the Democratic side, 18 said they would accept the outcome and one did not respond to The Post’s survey.”
They add, “The reluctance of many GOP candidates to embrace a long-standing tenet of American democracy shows how Trump’s assault on the integrity of U.S. elections has spread far beyond the 2020 presidential race. This year, multiple losing candidates could refuse to accept their defeats. Trump, who continues to claim without evidence that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 was rigged, has attacked fellow Republicans who do not agree — making election denialism the price of admission in many GOP primaries. More than half of all Republican nominees for federal and statewide office with powers over election administration have embraced unproven claims that fraud tainted Biden’s win, according to a Washington Post tally.”
Now one more note to be added here, something that came up on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” An NBC poll showed that 58% of Republicans identify with the Republican Party more than they do with Trump (33%). As The New York Times’ Peter Baker pointed out, the 33% number is the lowest since NBC has been doing such a poll.
But, “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd said, “That 33% is more than 50% in a primary electorate and that’s the issue.”
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy speaking with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Sunday. (Courtesy: NBC News)
Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is retiring after eight terms and is the longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate, appeared on Sunday’s “Velshi” on MSNBC and told host Ali Velshi that the Senate is broken.
“The Senate was never perfect, but it was a lot better than it is today,” Leahy said. “Look how it came together after the Nixon resignation, how it came together in so many issues, 9/11, and things like that. Today, you see, even when a mob is attacking the Capitol, people, well, we don’t know if that was a valid election or not. The fact that Joe Biden got 5 million more votes than Donald Trump didn’t seem to sway them.”
Asked if the Senate could heal and return to how it used to be, Leahy said, “If we don’t get it back, we’re in deep trouble in this country. We have seen the Supreme Court become more politicized, and even members of the Supreme Court going out and speaking to political gatherings extolling what they’re doing. That’s wrong. And, obviously, there’s going to be partisan differences. I don’t mind that in the Congress or the presidency. But there have to be underlying things where we come together. And that’s not being done enough. And if it’s not, the country is going to suffer.”
It was once a staple among news consumers and media observers: the Sunday morning news shows. We’re talking about NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” CBS’s “Face the Nation” and “Fox News Sunday.” It used to be appointment viewing, with the most important newsmakers and politicians appearing to put forward their ideas and, at the same time, being fairly but firmly questioned.
But things have changed, mostly because of the guests. In his latest piece — “Can the Sunday morning talk show be saved?” — Washington Post media critic Paul Farhi hits on a major obstacle facing the Sunday shows: getting guests who want to come on.
Farhi writes, “But while the four most highly rated shows still reach a relatively large audience — a combined average of about 9.3 million per week over the past year — there’s not nearly as much clamoring. Producers of the programs acknowledge that they often struggle to book the people who were once regulars in the greenroom on Sunday.”
Farhi correctly notes, “Political leaders now have multiple opportunities to deliver their message — cable-news live hits, podcasts, talk radio, social media — and they don’t have to wait until Sunday.”
And the politicians can do it on friendly shows where they’re unlikely to get much, if any, pushback.
Don’t look for the Sunday shows to disappear, but in the post-pandemic and divisive world, they might need to adjust their strategies to remain relevant.
CBS’s “60 Minutes” returned for its 55th season Sunday with an exclusive interview with President Joe Biden. Correspondent Scott Pelley talked to Biden about a variety of topics, including whether or not Biden will run again in 2024.
Biden told Pelley, “Look, my intention as I said to begin with is that I would run again. But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.”
Check out the entire interview, which includes such topics as Trump, the economy, Ukraine and COVID-19. About COVID-19, Biden said, “The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it … but the pandemic is over.”
Three people inside a house await rescue from the floods caused by Hurricane Fiona in Cayey, Puerto Rico, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Stephanie Rojas)
After growing from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane, Hurricane Fiona slammed into Puerto Rico on Sunday, knocking out power on all of the island. That impacts more than 1.4 million people. Along with the winds gusts in the 100 mph range, devastating rains flooded Puerto Rico. Check out this tweet to see some of the flooding. CNN’s Dakin Andone, Haley Brink and Melissa Alonso reported some areas of the island could receive up to 25 inches of rain.
The Washington Post’s Matthew Cappucci, Jacqueline Alemany and Praveena Somasundaram wrote, “Puerto Rico has a long history of power grid crises and attempts to fix its system. Since Hurricane Maria left the country without power for months in 2017, residents have called on local and federal governments to improve natural disaster response and recovery efforts.”
The New York Times wrote, “The collapse of the electrical grid came five years after Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico and knocked out the island’s power. Since then, unreliable electricity has been a mainstay of life on the island, leading to a slow recovery and widespread protests by frustrated residents.”
This will be a story to follow closely in the coming days and, hopefully, media coverage will keep the attention o...
Sole Complaint: Trump Accuses FBI Of Not Removing Shoes During Mar-A-Lago Raid
Sole Complaint: Trump Accuses FBI Of Not Removing Shoes During Mar-A-Lago Raid https://digitalalaskanews.com/sole-complaint-trump-accuses-fbi-of-not-removing-shoes-during-mar-a-lago-raid/
September 19, 2022 10:09 AM
Former President Donald Trump has lashed out against the FBI for its conduct while searching his Mar-a-Lago home, offering his latest criticisms of the agency after its raid last month.
Upon returning to his Mar-a-Lago residence for the first time since the Aug. 8 raid, Trump recalled coming back to “check out the scene of yet another government ‘crime,’” the former president wrote in a post on Truth Social. Trump criticized the handling of the FBI’s search as he made the trip back to his residence on Sunday night, calling it a “Raid and Break-in of my home.”
TRUMP’S SPECIAL MASTER PICK FOR MAR-A-LAGO INVESTIGATION VIEWED AS FBI SKEPTIC: REPORT
“In any event, after what they have done, the place will never be the same,” Trump said. “It was ‘ransacked,’ and in far different condition than the way I left it. Many Agents – And they didn’t even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!”
The former president has repeatedly criticized the FBI for its raid of his Mar-a-Lago home, previously calling the conduct a “deep and ugly search” done by “vicious monsters, controlled by radical-left scoundrels.”
The FBI seized more than 11,000 documents during its raid of the Mar-a-Lago residence, with several being considered the highest level of classification. The warranted search was part of an investigation by the Justice Department into whether Trump violated the Espionage Act by taking classified records after leaving the White House.
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However, the department must put its investigation on hold while a third-party special master reviews the documents to ensure they do not violate any client-attorney or executive privileges. Raymond Dearie, the appointed special master, has until Nov. 30 to complete his review.
The FBI declined to comment on the matter.
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US President Joe Biden Says It's 'too Early' To Make Decision On 2024 Reelection Bid
US President Joe Biden Says It's 'too Early' To Make Decision On 2024 Reelection Bid https://digitalalaskanews.com/us-president-joe-biden-says-its-too-early-to-make-decision-on-2024-reelection-bid/
US President Joe Biden stated on Sunday that it is “too early” to decide if he would run for the top post again in 2024, leaving room for speculation that he might not seek another term. According to reports, the US President has often stated that he respects fate immensely and that circumstances might play a role in his decision-making. “Look, my intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again. But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” Biden told CBS News.
Meanwhile, people in the Democratic circles believe that chances are very bleak that Biden would seek reelection in 2024. The campaign team for Biden anticipates him talking about a second run with his family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas break and hopes he can make a decision early next year. However, Biden’s public admission of his indecision raises fresh questions for the 2024 election. He also stated that he cannot make a decision as of now owing to the election laws.
“I’m a great respecter of fate. And so, what I’m doing is I’m doing my job. I’m gonna do that job. And within the timeframe that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going into next year, make a judgment on what to do,” Biden added. When asked about criticisms about him being unfit for the job at his age, 79-year-old Biden responded by saying, “watch me.” “I respect the fact that people would say, you know, ‘You’re old.’ But I think it relates to how much energy you have, and whether or not the job you’re doing is one consistent with what any person of any age would be able to do,” he told CBS News.
The majority of US voters do not back either Biden or Trump for 2024 elections: Poll
Interestingly, a recent poll has suggested that the majority of American voters have opposed Biden as well as Donald Trump’s candidacy for the next presidential election. In a NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll, more than 60% of voters and 30% of Democrats stated Biden shouldn’t run for office again, whereas, 57% of voters were against Trump’s candidacy. However, the majority of people surveyed also stated they do not have an alternative candidate in mind.
Image: AP
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Post Politics Now: Its A Big Week On The World Stage For Biden
Post Politics Now: It’s A Big Week On The World Stage For Biden https://digitalalaskanews.com/post-politics-now-its-a-big-week-on-the-world-stage-for-biden/
Today, President Biden is returning to Washington after attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London. It’s a big week on the world stage for the American president: He is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly, hold a meeting with new British Prime Minister Liz Truss and host a reception for world leaders in New York.
On Sunday night, Biden made multiple headlines in an interview that aired on “60 Minutes,” declaring that the coronavirus pandemic is over and saying U.S. troops would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack from China. Biden also hedged about whether he plans to seek reelection in 2024, saying that is his intention but that “it’s just an intention.”
Your daily dashboard
5 a.m. Eastern time (10 a.m. in London): Biden and first lady Jill Biden attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
5:05 p.m. Eastern: The Bidens return to the White House.
Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. Eastern weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers.
Noted: ‘I’m not that smart,’ Walker says, seeking to downplay expectations for upcoming debate
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A highly anticipated debate is scheduled next month in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia, and Republican nominee Hershel Walker is already trying to downplay expectations for his performance.
“I’m a country boy. I’m not that smart,” Walker told reporters Friday on a campaign stop in Savannah, Ga., according to an account from the Savannah Morning News.
Walker, a former football star, also noted that his opponent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), is a preacher.
“(Warnock) is smart and wears these nice suits,” Walker said. “So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate Oct. 14th, and I’m just waiting to show up, and I will do my best.”
Analysis: Democrats push to avoid a Medicaid cliff for new moms
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Half the states have taken advantage of a provision of President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill making it easier to extend Medicaid benefits to a full year after birth for low-income new mothers.
Writing in The Health 202, The Post’s Rachel Roubein says that while the option has had notable success, there’s one key caveat: Congress only authorized the pathway for five years. Without additional action by lawmakers, extra postpartum coverage in these states will expire on April 1, 2027. Rachel writes:
On our radar: Reps. Cheney, Lofgren preview Electoral Count Act bill
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It’s quite possible the House will vote this week on legislation to change the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law that governs the certification of the presidential election.
Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer note that Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the House Administration Committee’s chairwoman, and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) previewed their bill in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday night.
Here are some of the details, according to their op-ed:
Analysis: What an election denier could do if elected secretary of state
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In many states, the secretary of state is the chief elections official. It’s a crucial job, but not one that many Americans have heard of, much less paid attention to.
But secretary of state races are starting to get a lot more national attention and money, The Post’s Amber Phillips writes. Per our colleague:
Former president Donald Trump and his allies have succeeded in boosting 2020 election deniers as candidates this primary season, and in many states, they’ve won the Republican nomination. That means, by next year, election deniers could be in charge of their states’ elections, including in key swing states for the 2024 presidential race.
Among the things rogue secretary of states could do: make it harder to vote, allow for endless audits, refuse to sign off on election results and sow distrust.
You can read Amber’s full analysis here.
Analysis: Why Elise Stefanik may be moving up by moving down
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Ambitious politicians don’t often seek a demotion. But that’s basically what Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) did last week when she announced she would run again for the position of House Republican conference chair.
Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer says that if Republicans retake the House, as they expect to, that position would move down a peg from the No. 3 spot in House GOP leadership to No. 4 in the hierarchy because the party would pick up the speakership.
On our radar: Biden says running again is ‘just an intention’
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President Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday that it’s “much too early” to make a firm decision about running for president again in 2024, leaving open the possibility that another Democrat could appear atop the ticket in two years.
“Look, my intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again,” Biden told CBS’s Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes.” “But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.”
“I’m a great respecter of fate,” Biden added. “And so, what I’m doing is I’m doing my job. I’m going to do that job, and within the time frame that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going into next year, make a judgment on what to do.”
The latest: Biden, in London, honors the queen and avoids diplomatic disputes
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President Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived Monday morning at Westminster Abbey in London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Post’s Toluse Olorunnipa reports that Biden on Sunday visited Westminster Hall in London to view the queen’s coffin, his first official act of condolence during a brief visit to the United Kingdom to attend the funeral of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
Per our colleague:
As he stood before the coffin, Biden took a deep breath before making the sign of the cross and then placing his hand over his heart. With the visit, the president and first lady Jill Biden, became the latest — and highest-profile — visitors to the royal lying in state that has drawn thousands of people in queues stretching for miles.
“She was the same in person as her image,” Biden said Sunday after signing a condolence book for her. “Decent, honorable and all about service.”
Biden’s itinerary is being closely watched by the British public, from his arrival on Air Force One on Saturday night, to which British officials he chooses to engage, to his use of the presidential limousine known as “The Beast” while other world leaders are relegated to buses.
You can read the full story here.
Noted: Biden says ‘the pandemic is over’
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President Biden declared the coronavirus pandemic “over,” in apparently off-the-cuff remarks that reflect the growing sentiment that the threat of the virus has receded, even as hundreds of Americans continue to die of covid each day.
“We still have a problem with covid,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night. “We’re still doing a lot of work on it … but the pandemic is over.”
The Post’s Dan Diamond reports that Biden made the remarks Wednesday during the interview at the auto show in Detroit, referencing the crowds at the event. The annual auto show had not been held since 2019. Per Dan:
Noted: Biden says U.S. troops would defend Taiwan in event of attack by China
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President Biden has again confirmed that U.S. troops would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack from China, the clearest recent statement that Biden has made about how far the United States would go to support Taiwan militarily.
The Post’s Amy B Wang reports that in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday evening, Biden told host Scott Pelley that the United States would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”
Amy writes:
China claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that is home to 23 million people, as its own territory, and has asserted it could one day use force to take control of the island.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine more than six months ago, Biden had emphasized several times that U.S. military forces would not fight Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. Pelley pressed Biden on whether the situation would be different in the event of an attack on Taiwan.
“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces — U.S. men and women — would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?” Pelley asked.
“Yes,” Biden replied.
You can read Amy’s full story here.
Take a look: On the Sunday shows, guests debate transporting migrants
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The decisions by Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida to transport migrants north to largely Democratic areas were an intense topic of conversation on the Sunday talk shows. Democrats accused the governors of engaging in cruel political stunts, while Republicans argued that the Biden administration needs to overhaul the nation’s border policies.
The Post’s Mahlia Posey pulled together the highlights, which include appearances by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and New York Mayor Eric Adams (D).
Analysis: Happy 15th birthday, Fact Checker!
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The Washington Post Fact Checker is 15 years old today, although strictly speaking that statement might merit a Pinocchio.
The Post’s Glenn Kessler writes that with a burst of four fact checks on the morning of Sept. 19, 2007 — of statements by Osama bin Laden, former senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former senator Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.) — our former colleague Michael Dobbs launched the Fact Checker.
Per Glenn:
By coincidence, the new feature appeared a few weeks after the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) unveiled PolitiFact. ...
Opinion | What We Really Mean When We Say woke elites And Other Politically Fraught Terms
Opinion | What We Really Mean When We Say ‘woke,’ ‘elites’ And Other Politically Fraught Terms https://digitalalaskanews.com/opinion-what-we-really-mean-when-we-say-woke-elites-and-other-politically-fraught-terms/
September 19, 2022 at 9:07 a.m. EDT
(Washington Post staff illustration/iStock images)
Since it’s election season, you’re probably reading a ton of stories about Politician X appealing to Voting Bloc Y with Z-ish rhetoric. Journalists, political strategists and even politicians themselves deliver much of this information in a kind of code — terms and phrases that show up only in coverage of politics. Here’s a guide to the election-speak — and a plea to move on from it.
Culture wars. Cultural issues. Identity politics. Social issues.
Abortion. The rights of people who are bisexual, gay, lesbian, queer and/or transgender. Racial issues. Women’s issues.
The “culture wars” are usually invoked in reference to gender, LGBTQ and racial issues and those who advocate for them. So Black politicians condemning police brutality are described as practicing identity politics, but White ones who strongly defend the police are not.
The bias in the use of these terms isn’t the only problem with them. They are vague. Their meanings are not universally shared. They often obscure more than they explain (perhaps intentionally). Speaking of intentionally vague …
Left-wing/very left-wing on issues of gender, LGBTQ and race.
This term could have been in the previous section, but it is newer and merits its own explanation. “Woke” was once used largely by Black people, invoking the idea that they should stay mindful of racism in America. The term is now used by political figures on the center-left, center-right and right as a kind of epithet against those they view as too left-wing on racial, gender and LGBTQ issues.
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Like “identity politics” and other similar phrases, “woke” and “wokeness” are vague. They don’t have a broadly agreed-upon meaning. It’s fairly clear that using the term “Latinx” is considered woke or too woke by those in the political center and on the right. But I’m not sure if supporting reparations is woke, too woke or not part of wokeness.
I suspect that lack of clarity is why some people like using these terms. Slamming wokeness allows people to oppose left-wing views on very fraught issues without spelling out their specific objections.
Democratic and Republican Party leaders. Elected officials. Political pundits and commentators. The wealthy. Political operatives.
There are individuals in America with much more power than ordinary people — and those individuals are usually elected officials, wealthy people and those who are employed by them. We should name them, as opposed to implying there is some anonymous, powerful elite controlling the country.
Evangelical, White evangelicals.
Conservative Christians. White and Latino Christians with conservative views on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights and race.
What actually constitutes evangelical Christianity or makes someone an evangelical is somewhat contested. But generally, evangelical Christianity denotes a specific set of religious views and practices, such as believing that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. People who hold those beliefs often describe themselves as born again or simply Christian instead of evangelical. Churches with evangelical beliefs use terms such as “biblical” to describe their theology.
Also, in part because the term “evangelical” has become synonymous with the Republican Party, many Christians who vote for Democratic candidates, particularly Black people, have evangelical views but don’t describe themselves as evangelicals. On the other hand, some Republicans describe themselves as evangelicals even though they don’t actually hold those views or even regularly attend church.
So “evangelical” is a term used more by reporters than churchgoers. And reporters are almost always invoking evangelicals in reference to White and Latino Christians who oppose abortion and transgender rights and who vote Republican.
More conservative, very conservative. Right-wing. Aligned with former president Donald Trump. More liberal, very liberal. Progressive. Left-wing. Aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Attaching “far” to political beliefs has a negative connotation, implying views that are on the fringe and therefore bad. There are less loaded terms to describe politicians who are further from the ideological center than others.
Centrist. Center-left, center-right.
This is the flip of above — “moderate” and “mainstream” are words with positive connotations. What is more accurate and less loaded is that some politicians (including President Biden) are closer to the center than others (Sanders). “Center” and “centrist” have positive connotations as well, but they aren’t quite as complimentary as “mainstream” in particular.
Trump-like, Trump-style, Trump-aligned. Sanders-aligned. Left-wing, left-wing on economic issues.
“Nationalist” and “populist” are often invoked in reference to Trump and his political style. But those terms have had a lot of meanings in various contexts, both in the United States and abroad. In recent years, both Trump and Sanders have been described as populists. A term that is being applied to such different politicians is of limited analytic use.
It was hard to define Trump’s political approach in 2015. But now, describing a Republican politician as Trump-aligned or Trump-like is much more useful than calling her a populist or a nationalist.
Suburban women, White suburban women.
White women, White women who are swing voters, White women with ideologically centrist views, White women with middle or high incomes.
About 55 percent of Americans live in suburban counties, as opposed to urban or rural ones, according to the Pew Research Center. So saying a politician should appeal to women in the suburbs isn’t that much more descriptive than saying he or she should appeal to women.
Also, it’s not as though the suburbs aren’t filled with very partisan voters. Black women who live in the suburbs are likely to be stalwart Democrats. So are the White women who live in suburbs such as the D.C. area’s Montgomery County that are close to big, left-leaning cities. White women who are Christian conservatives and live in the suburbs are typically Republicans.
In political contexts, the phrase “suburban women” is usually code for White women with middle or high incomes who swing between the parties, particularly those who might support abortion rights but be more conservative on economic issues.
Voters in the heartland, voters in the Midwest. Voters in the South. Coastal voters.
Swing voters in the Midwest. Republican voters in the South. Democratic voters who live on the coasts.
“Heartland” is usually code for GOP or swing voters, but heavily Democratic Chicago is in the Midwest. Thirty-four percent of the people in California voted for Trump, and 41 percent in Missouri for Joe Biden. There is no need to cast states and regions as one-party monoliths.
Working-class voters, working people, White working class.
Lower-income voters. Voters without a bachelor’s degree. White voters without four year-degrees. Ideologically centrist and conservative White voters.
There are no formal classes in America. There is no agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a person in the working class, the middle class or the upper class. You could argue that, say, dishwashers in restaurants are clearly in the working class. But we don’t have much data that drills down on the voting preferences of people in specific jobs, to distinguish between, say, dishwashers and factory workers.
The term “working class” evokes a lower-income person. And we do have data on voters in households with incomes below $50,000 — about 53 percent backed Biden in 2020, compared with 44 percent for Trump, according to Pew.
You might be surprised to learn that Biden, not Trump, won the votes of more lower-income Americans, because news coverage often describes Democrats as out of step with the working class.
Where the Republicans have gained ground and Democrats have lost it over the past decade in particular is among White Americans without four-year college degrees, a group that the news media often shorthands as the White working class. But “working-class” and “non-college-educated” are not interchangeable phrases. Many people with college degrees don’t make a lot of money, and some people without degrees do.
“White without a college degree” isn’t that useful of a description, either. Most Americans are White, and most Americans don’t have bachelor’s degrees. Trump won about 80 percent of White Americans without degrees in Georgia in 2020, but only about half of that bloc in Maine.
American voters are best understood by looking at ideology, geography and race, not education, income or class. The Republican base is White Americans with conservative views, particularly those who live in the South, not the White working class.
The voters who have swung the last three campaign cycles are moderate, centrist, liberal on some issues but conservative on others, or not particularly ideological at all, which explains why they back politicians as different as Trump and Barack Obama. Saying that the parties are fighting over “ideologically unmoored” voters isn’t as compelling as talking about class or education, but it is way more accurate.
I don’t expect politicians, political operatives or pundits with a clear ideological lean to start using this more honest language. In politics, defining the terms is part of the fight. So if you are a Republican, you want to suggest that the Democrats are out of step with “working-class voters,” as opposed to “White and Latino people with centrist or conservative views.” If you are a Biden-aligned Democrat, descri...
Conspiracy Theories Are Dangerous Even If Very Few People Believe Them
Conspiracy Theories Are Dangerous Even If Very Few People Believe Them https://digitalalaskanews.com/conspiracy-theories-are-dangerous-even-if-very-few-people-believe-them/
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
(THE CONVERSATION) There is an open question among pundits and researchers: Do more Americansbelieve in conspiracy theories now than ever before?
But as a scholar of conspiracy theories and their believers, I am concerned that focusing on how many Americans believe conspiracy theories can distract from their dangers.
Even if most people dismiss conspiracy theories or accept them only in some limited sense, leaving very small numbers of true believers, the high visibility of these false ideas can still make them dangerous.
Association without belief
Philosophers often suppose people can explain their actions in terms of what they want to do or get, and what they believe. However, many of people’s actions are guided not by explicit beliefs but rather by gut feelings. These feelings aren’t set in stone. They can be influenced by experience.
This principle is taken to heart by advertisers who aim to influence behavior, not by changing how people think but how they feel. Manipulating feelings in this way can be accomplished by subtly associating a product with desirable outcomes like status and sex.
This can also take a negative form, as in political attack ads that aim to associate an opponent with threatening imagery and descriptions. Forging similar mental associations is one way in which conspiracy theories, like other misinformation, might have consequences even without being believed.
Some examples
Consider conspiracy theories alleging that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. Some people no doubt believe that. But even if people don’t buy the whole lie, they may still believe that something about the 2020 election doesn’t “feel right,” “seem right” or “smell right.” They might, therefore, be more inclined to support efforts politicians claim will protect election integrity – even if such efforts result in targeted voter suppression.
Next, consider anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Anti-vaccination content, whether about vaccines in general or specifically about the COVID-19 vaccines, often takes the form of pictures and videos purporting to illustrate disturbing side effects of vaccines. Material of this sort can proliferate rapidly across social media and, by relying on disturbing imagery rather than explicit false claims, can often escape moderation.
Exposure to anti-vaccination information might give readers or viewers a vague feeling of unease, and consequent hesitancy concerning vaccines, even without producing explicit anti-vaccination beliefs. In fact, previous studies have shown that people who tend to rely on their intuition and who have negative emotions toward vaccines are more likely to refuse vaccination. While that research involved other vaccines, it’s likely that similar factors help explain why many Americans have gone without full COVID-19 vaccination, and most have gone without boosters.
Pretense and coordination
Scholars often suggest that many people merely pretend to believe in conspiracy theories and other forms of misinformation as a way of expressing their political loyalties. But even pretense can be costly. Consider an analogy.
When a child declares that “the floor is lava,” few if any believe the declaration. But that child, and others, begin to act as if the declaration were true. Those who do may clamber onto furniture, and repeat the declaration to others who enter the space. Some children play just for fun, some play to show off their climbing and jumping skills, and some play to appease the child who initiated the game.
Some kids quickly tire of the game and wish to stop playing, but like or respect the child who initiated the game, and don’t want to upset that person by stopping. As the game progresses, some take it too seriously. Furniture is damaged, and some get injured while attempting to leap from one raised surface to another. The lava is fake, but real things get broken.
More seriously, when Donald Trump claimed that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” some officials and ordinary citizens acted accordingly. Whether out of sincere belief, partisanship, loyalty to Trump or financial opportunism, many Americans behaved as if the 2020 election was unfairly decided.
Some people acting as if the election conspiracy theory were true assembled in Washington, D.C., some stormed the Capitol building and, behind the scenes, some developed a scheme to submit fake slates of electors supporting Trump’s reelection despite his loss at the ballot box. The people involved in these activities could count on the support of others who endorsed the rigged election claim, even if these endorsements were largely insincere.
The price of pretending
The costs of acting as if the 2020 election were rigged are no doubt greater than those for acting as if the floor is lava. The costs of acting as if the 2020 election were rigged led to millions of dollars worth of damage to the Capitol building, led to hundreds of arrests for Capitol rioters, led to multiple deaths and imperiled American democracy.
Given the severe risks involved, it’s worth wondering why people who did not sincerely believe the election was unfair would risk pretending. This question highlights the unique danger of conspiracy theories endorsed by those in power: There can be much to gain from pretending to believe them.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-are-dangerous-even-if-very-few-people-believe-them-189859.
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Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall In Dominican Republic As Most Of Puerto Rico Remains Without Power | CNN
Hurricane Fiona Makes Landfall In Dominican Republic As Most Of Puerto Rico Remains Without Power | CNN https://digitalalaskanews.com/hurricane-fiona-makes-landfall-in-dominican-republic-as-most-of-puerto-rico-remains-without-power-cnn/
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CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has the latest on Hurricane Fiona, which made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sunday.
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Leomar Rodríguez
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Surveillance footage captured the moment a gymnasium collapsed following a 6.9-magnitude earthquake in southeastern Taiwan. CNN’s Will Ripley reports.
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SET TV
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Depositors held up at least five separate banks around Lebanon in an attempt to retrieve savings frozen in the banking system, a Lebanese army official told CNN.
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Lebanese Depositors Association
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Queen Elizabeth II’s eight grandchildren held a vigil at her lying in state as the royal family prepares to bid farewell to the late monarch at her state funeral.
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Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra, is running in Nigeria’s presidential race. He discusses his objectives for the country with CNN’s Zain Asher.
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King Charles III and Prince William, the Prince of Wales, greeted people in line to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state.
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People in India are calling on Britain to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a 105-carat jewel on the Queen Mother’s crown, after Queen Elizabeth’s death. CNN reporter Vedika Sud has more.
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President Vladimir Putin addressed China’s questions and concerns about the war in Ukraine during a regional summit on Thursday. This is the first time Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met since Russia’s invasion over six months ago. CNN’s Ivan Watson reports.
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Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says at least 440 unmarked graves were found in the city of Izium in recent days. The country’s officials say some of the bodies found showed signs of torture. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh has more.
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Hundreds of people across Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern parts of England spotted an unusual fireball lighting up the night sky. CNN’s Kristin Fisher reports on what people think it was.
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Taiwan says civilian drones from mainland China are intruding upon the self-governing island. CNN’s Will Ripley reports on how the drone incursions exposed a flaw in Taiwan’s defenses.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his country’s military during a visit to the newly liberated city of Izium in Kharkiv region. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reports from the ground.
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Billionaire Lukas Waltons Family Office Accelerates Impact-Investing Push
Billionaire Lukas Walton’s Family Office Accelerates Impact-Investing Push https://digitalalaskanews.com/billionaire-lukas-waltons-family-office-accelerates-impact-investing-push/
Builders Vision, the investing and philanthropy platform of billionaire Lukas Walton, has shifted its $1 billion endowment into what it calls “impact investments,” leading a broader shift in family offices to connect their investing and giving.
Chicago-based Builders Vision will announce today that its Builders Initiative Foundation has moved 90% of its endowment into “mission-related” investments — investments in keeping with Builder’s broader goals of sustainability and equity. Most foundations have 20% or less of their endowments in ESG or impact investments, so the 90% level sets a new benchmark for family offices and foundations.
related investing news
“If we are going to make lasting change happen, we need our mission to show up in everything we do – especially in how we invest our resources,” said Lukas Walton, the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton. “That’s why we are investing our endowment in companies, organizations and strategies that prioritize sustainable and equitable solutions.”
(PRO subscribers can view an exclusive interview with Walton on this news and his overall investing strategy here.)
Walton, 36, is at the forefront of a rapid generational shift in family offices, as inheritors and entrepreneurs in their 30s and 40s use their fortunes to drive social change. For decades, family offices split their philanthropy and investing — making money on one side and giving it away on the other. The new generation wants their investments to pursue the same solutions as their giving, fusing “profits with purpose.”
“We believe profit and purpose are not at odds, quite the opposite,” said Matt Knott, Builders Vision’s President and COO and a former executive at PepsiCo. “Purpose-driven businesses will be competitively advantaged going forward. The brands and companies that people feel good about will have competitive advantage.”
Billions for social change
Even as ESG investing faces a backlash and criticism of “greenwashing,” the rise of impact investing among family offices is accelerating. A Credit Suisse survey of family offices found that nearly half of family offices surveyed plan to increase their sustainable investing over the next 2-3 years. As more family wealth passes down to younger generations, and more tech wealth is created by young founders, family offices are pouring billions into start-ups, stocks and private equity aimed at social change.
“This next generation is unstoppable,” said James Gifford, head of Sustainable and Impact Advisory and Thought Leadership at Credit Suisse. “They are bringing out the best of free markets and of social innovation.”
Adds Knott, the Builders Vision president: “This new generation of family offices want to drive impact, they want to make a difference with the wealth they’re inheriting.”
Builders Vision, which has more than $4 billion in assets, includes a direct investing arm, asset management unit and philanthropy. All are aimed at three main issues: food, ocean health and energy transition. Builders Vision has assembled teams of in-house experts to fund the highest impact ideas and share them across the philanthropy, start-up and investing worlds. The Builder’s Initiative Foundation is part of the philanthropy arm of Builders Vision, which has multiple funds and pools of capital, each with their own targets and investing missions.
Philanthropy, Walton says, can’t solve the world’s biggest problems, even with government help. The big technological innovations needed in energy, agriculture and the environment will likely come from entrepreneurs. At the same time, many impact-related start-ups are too risky for traditional venture capital firms and angel investors. Walton and his team say that Builders Vision and other large family offices are uniquely positioned to fund companies and non-profits across the risk spectrum.
NGO to IPO
“We want to provide the capital solution from NGO to IPO,” said Sanjeev Krishnan, chief investment officer of S2G Ventures, the Builders Vision venture capital fund.
For instance, the oceans team at the Builders Initiative used an LLC to invest in a small start-up called Matter, a U.K.-based company developing tech solutions for capturing, harvesting and recycling microplastics. As it grew, it became an attractive venture capital investment, leading Builders’ VC arm, S2G, to recently invest seven figures.
S2G, with about $2 billion in capital, has funded 80 companies and was an early investor in SweetGreen and Beyond Meat. Its portfolio includes everything from Farmer Focus, which partners with family farms to raise organic chicken, to Common Energy, which funds community solar projects.
While Krishnan declined to give specific returns, S2G ranks in the top quartile of VC firms, according to Cambridge Associates benchmarks.
With its 90% endowment shift into mission-related investments, even the Builders Initiative Foundation endowment — which funds the philanthropy— is now focused on positive social and environmental impact. Noelle Laing, chief investment officer of Builders Initiative, said the real-return target is still 5% net of fees, which is standard for endowments.
“We think you can achieve market rates of return while integrating ESG factors and integrating an impact lens into our strategies,” Laing said. “We think it’s just smarter investing.”
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Young Conservatives Politicians And Media Stars Convene Near Houston To win The Culture War
Young Conservatives, Politicians And Media Stars Convene Near Houston To “win The Culture War” https://digitalalaskanews.com/young-conservatives-politicians-and-media-stars-convene-near-houston-to-win-the-culture-war/
By Jesus Vidales, The Texas Tribune
Sept. 17, 2022
“Young conservatives, politicians and media stars convene near Houston to “win the culture war”” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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THE WOODLANDS — The worship space at Grace Woodlands church was peppered with red MAGA hats on Saturday, as young adults gathered to hear from leading conservatives often seen on Fox News.
In the hallways, a few people pushed strollers and others weaved through the crowd to get to the tables hawking shirts that read, “Let the revolution begin” or “Freedom is never more than one generation from tyranny.”
They were there for the fourth annual Texas Youth Summit, a two-day conference in which teenage and young adult Texans convened with politicians, ideologically aligned companies and political groups to hear lectures, meet in small groups and ultimately feel empowered, as the summit’s slogan says, “to be the catalysts to win the Culture War.”
Speakers included Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Donald Trump Jr., talk show host Candace Owens and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who wore a pistol strapped to her leg as she addressed the hall. As the headliners gave their speeches, a large cross from the churches’ sanctuary was illuminated behind them.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz also spoke, the same day the Washington Post reported that he sought a preemptive pardon from President Donald Trump related to a sex trafficking investigation. On Saturday, Gaetz made no mention of the investigation, in which the U.S. Department of Justice was reportedly looking into whether he paid for women to travel across state lines for sex and had a relationship with a 17-year-old girl. Instead, he urged the young people in attendance to fight for conservative causes.
“If you’re here with me on a Saturday, you came to this because you care — and it is because you know the fight we are in,” he said. “We’re now in a country where you see grandmothers robbed in broad daylight in our major cities, and they are raiding the home of the former president of the United States. You used to only see this in the poorest third world countries on planet Earth.”
The summit was founded by Christian Collins, a former political staffer for Cruz and U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady. Registration for the event, which was supported through donations and sponsorships from businesses like the right-wing cellphone company Patriot Mobile, was free for students ages 12 through 26, as long as they submitted a reference from an adult confirming “their interest in conservative politics.” Adults were able to buy a ticket.
According to its website, the summit strives to “identify, educate, and train students to promote principles of fiscal responsibility, free market, limited government, American Exceptionalism and the Judeo-Christian principles this country was founded on.”
“The Left controls the education system, TV networks, Hollywood, and social media and they are influencing youth,” the website reads. “It’s so important youth learn the Conservative Principles that have always made and will continue to make America exceptional.”
For attendees, the stakes were high.
“I’m so conservative, I love my country. … So all of that stuff is just stuff we need to strive for. And they’re trying to take that away from our country,” said Manny Galvan, president of his Houston high school’s Turning Point USA chapter. “Every day we sit here, so the more we do nothing, the more that’s getting taken. The more we’re trying to fight back, the more we can gain.”
But attendees also had differing views on what the culture war means.
“It’s not a literal war, but it is a metaphorical war for the battle of ideas,” said Collins, the event’s founder. “We are working to educate young people with conservative and most importantly, Judeo Christian values so that they have the right worldview when they go off to college, or when they’re in their high schools, because of what the left is doing.”
Paideia Classical School was one of the organizations tabling at the event. They have four campuses across Texas, with three of them opening up within the last three years.
“We are trying to create critical thinkers with our classes,” said Loiuse Davidson, who was working the table. “Many people just accept what they first see without any research.”
Some panels at the event urged attendees to question established research, raising conspiracy theories around COVID-19, cellphone towers and more. But more than anything, the event focused on the idea that liberals inside and outside the government were taking the country in a dangerous direction.
“When it comes to this organization, we’re a nonprofit dealing with conservative issues, and we’re addressing the issues as opposed to specific groups,” Collins said. “We’re really trying to tackle the ideas, the ideas are important to us. And so if we think your idea is wrong, then we will address the idea but I mean, we’re not trying to go after anyone’s identity.”
Phill Cady, an Air Force veteran who moved to Texas from California, set up a table to register people to vote. He said he’d register anyone to vote if they asked — even if they didn’t agree with him.
“Some people just see MAGA and think bad,” he said, pointing to his red “Make America Great Again” hat. “I am a Republican, but I’m not here to support that.”
But from many, the message was to do more than vote. In order to win the culture war, strong political action and mobilization was needed.
“If you’re a digital warrior, get better at it,” Gaetz said. “If you make phone calls and knock on doors, become more efficient, become an organizer and activist.”
The Texas Tribune Festival is almost here! From Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 22-24, in downtown Austin, TribFest attendees will enjoy three days full of mind-expanding events, conversations and panels featuring more than 350 big names including Chris Bosh, Pete Buttigieg, Liz Cheney, Annette Gordon-Reed and many others. Join us for Texas’ biggest politics and policy event when you buy your tickets today.
Correction, Sept. 17, 2022: Due to an editing error, a previous correction on this story said that Marjorie Taylor Greene was not a speaker at the Texas Youth Summit. She was a speaker.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/17/texas-youth-summit-culture-war/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
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Congress Running Out Of Time To Stop Trump From Stocking Government With Loyalists
Congress Running Out Of Time To Stop Trump From Stocking Government With Loyalists https://digitalalaskanews.com/congress-running-out-of-time-to-stop-trump-from-stocking-government-with-loyalists/
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What Two New Polls Tell Us About The Midterms https://digitalalaskanews.com/what-two-new-polls-tell-us-about-the-midterms/
With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
HAPPENING NOW — The funeral of QUEEN ELIZABETH II is underway. Watch live via BBC … WaPo: World watches Britain lay its longest-reigning monarch to rest … Related read: Ben Schreckinger, with a letter from London: “A Massachusetts Yankee in Queen Elizabeth’s Queue”
THIS WEEK — Today: Clinton Global Initiative kicks off in NYC. … Tuesday: U.N. General Assembly opens its first day of high-level debates. … Wednesday: President JOE BIDEN speaks at UNGA. The Atlantic Festival opens in D.C. … Thursday: Autumn begins.
TOP-ED — “We Have a Bill to Help Prevent Another Jan. 6 Attack,” by Reps. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.) and ZOE LOFGREN (D-Calif.) in the WSJ: “It’s past time to reform the Electoral Count Act to make clear Congress can’t overturn an election result.”
BRACE YOURSELF — “Why we may not know who won the Senate on Election Day,” by Zach Montellaro: “Trump-aligned candidates on the ballot have signaled they could mimic the former president and use any delays in 2022 to undermine confidence in the results again.”
IS 2022 A ‘WAVES’ ELECTION? — Evidence that the 2022 election will likely be closer than originally thought continues to mount. Two new polls give a sense of the contours of the race.
FIRST, THE NBC POLL: The latest NBC News poll paints a decidedly mixed portrait of the election. Seven weeks out, voters are evenly split at 46% in their preference for which party should control Congress next year. Biden’s approval rating has risen to its highest in 11 months, while DONALD TRUMP’s favorability has dropped. Sixty-one percent oppose the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, 63% said their income is falling behind the cost of living, and “threats to democracy” ranked as the issue most important to voters.
For our money, the most interesting overall takeaway came from the Democratic and Republican pollsters who jointly conducted the survey for NBC:
— Instead of a “wave” election, 2022 may be a “‘waves’ election, where unprecedentedly strong crosscurrents push voters in different directions, with an end result that may not be what we expected,” said Democrat JEFF HORWITT of Hart Research Associates.
— Indeed, 2022 is effectively two campaigns running in parallel: “There is a campaign about the economy, cost of living, crime and border security, and Republicans are winning this campaign,” said Republican BILL MCINTURFF of Public Opinion Strategies. “But there is a second campaign on abortion, democracy and climate change, and Democrats are winning that campaign.”
Key takeaway for the GOP: If they want to make major gains in this cycle, they’ll need to do what they can to try and change the focus of the campaign to issues like the economy or immigration.
ONE WAY TO PIVOT: You can probably expect more efforts like Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS’ Martha’s Vineyard stunt, simply to try and change what issues are receiving the most media coverage.
ONE WAY NOT TO PIVOT: Here, via WMUR’s Adam Sexton, is New Hampshire GOP Senate nominee DON BOLDUC on Democratic Sen. MAGGIE HASSAN’s focus on abortion rights: “She just wants to hang on with dear life. Well guess what? Your views are not consistent with the average Granite Stater, number one. Number two, get over it. This is about the economy.”
— FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Right on cue, Hassan’s campaign launched a new digital ad, “Won’t Get Over It,” hitting Bolduc for the comment. Watch the spot
SECOND, THE NYT/SIENA POLL: Republican dreams that a huge swath of Latino voters will run to their side do not appear to be coming true — yet. That comes from the latest NYT/Siena College poll, which shows Democrats maintaining a hold on the Latino electorate. Asked which party’s candidate they’d vote for if the election were held today, 56% of Latinos sided with the Democrats, compared to 32% for the Republicans.
“The idea that the Republicans were ever going to win the Hispanic vote was always a farce and a pipe dream at best,” FERNAND AMANDI, a Democratic strategist who helped BARACK OBAMA win Florida in 2008 and 2012, told Playbook on Sunday night. “The only question was whether or not the Democrats would be able to replicate historic high percentages of support from the Hispanic vote.”
But Republicans can drastically reshape American politics without winning a majority of the Latino vote — and in that effort, they’re already making inroads:
— “Younger male Hispanic voters … appear to be drifting away from the party, a shift that is propelled by deep economic concerns,” write NYT’s Jennifer Medina, Jazmine Ulloa and Ruth Igielnik.
— “Republicans are performing best with Hispanic voters who live in the South, a region that includes Florida and Texas. … In the South, 46 percent of Latino voters say they plan to vote for Democrats, while 45 percent say they plan to vote for Republicans. By contrast, Democrats lead 62 to 24 among Hispanic voters in other parts of the country.”
— “Republicans also have strength among Latino men … who say, by a five-point margin, that they would vote for Mr. Trump if he were to run again in 2024.”
The notion that “demography is destiny” and that a growing Latino population would result in an unassailable Democratic majority is proving to be a canard. And it’s one made worse by Democratic complacency in engaging Latino voters, says Amandi: “They don’t seem to be hustling the vote quite as much as we see the Republicans do.”
Good Monday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
‘THE PANDEMIC IS OVER’ — Biden sat down with SCOTT PELLEY for an interview that aired on the Sunday night season premiere of “60 Minutes.” The full interview … The newsiest bits:
On Covid-19: “The pandemic is over.” More: David Cohen and Adam Cancryn report that this statement by Biden “was not part of his planned remarks,” and “caught several of his own health officials by surprise.”
On the threat of a Chinese attack on Taiwan: Pelley: “Would U.S. forces defend the island?” Biden: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”
On running in 2024: “[I]t’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.”
On Ukraine: Pelley: “You’re already north of $15 billion in terms of those commitments. How far do you go?” Biden: “As long as it takes.”
On inflation: “We’re in a position where, for the last several months, it hasn’t spiked. … It’s been basically even. And in the meantime, we created all these jobs … and prices … have gone up, but they’ve come down for energy. The fact is that we’ve created 10 million new jobs. … [T]he unemployment rate is about 3.7%, one of the lowest in history. We’re in a situation where manufacturing is coming back to the United States in a big way. … So, I — look, this is a process. This is a process.”
The other interview on “60 Minutes” also made news: Iranian President EBRAHIM RAISI “ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) this week,” as The Guardian’s Julian Borger writes.
ALL EYES ON TURTLE BAY — In person for the first time in three years, world leaders are gathering in Manhattan this week for UNGA, where the war in Ukraine will be the major topic of discussion, AP’s Edith Lederer reports. Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY will be the only one allowed to pre-record his speech. The queen’s funeral has complicated matters: “Diplomats and U.N. staff are scrambling to deal with changes in travel plans, the timing of some events and the logistically intricate speaking schedule for world leaders.”
STORM CHASING — Hurricane Fiona knocked out power to the entirety of Puerto Rico as it slammed into the island Sunday. Five years after Hurricane Maria, this Category 1 storm dumped dozens of inches of rain, causing major flooding and “catastrophic” levels of damage, Gov. PEDRO PIERLUISI said. Power slowly started to be restored later in the day. More from USA Today
PHOTO OF THE DAY
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GEORGIA ON MY MIND — The GOP is working to define Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-Ga.) negatively for voters, after rueing their failure to do so in 2020, Natalie Allison and Burgess Everett report this morning. It’s a hard task with a pastor, but some Republicans are zeroing in on Warnock’s finances and growing wealth: “Warnock’s opponents are zeroing in on a unique $7,400 monthly housing allowance he receives as pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. The stipend amounts to nearly $90,000 in income that appears to far exceed his housing costs back home, money that’s exempt from income taxes.” Warnock says he’s done nothing wrong.
ON THE TRAIL — DeSantis hit the road Sunday, stumping for Republicans in Kansas and Wisconsin. And in both stops, either he or the candidates alongside him said they hoped to remake their state governments in Florida’s image under DeSantis.
In Kansas: “I think America’s education governor currently resides in Tallahassee, not Topeka,” said Kansas AG DEREK SCHMIDT, who’s running for governor, per The Kansas City Star. Kansans gave DeSantis a standing ovation on the border and his controversial migrant flight, per CNN.
In Wisconsin: “With TIM MICHELS as governor, you’re going to be able to do everything Florida has done and more on the issue of election integrity,” DeSantis said in Green Bay, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Related read: “In Wisconsin, Election Skeptics Deploy as Poll Watchers for Midterms,” WSJ
— Virginia Gov. GLENN YOUNGKIN is expected to campaign next month with Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee KARI LAKE, demonstrating his willingness to align with the party’s most extreme candidates, Alex Isenstadt reports this morning. JIM CLICK, a megadonor in Arizona, helped facilitate the connection after finding himself recently impressed by Lake.
CASH DASH — Democrats aren’t the only ones contending with a...
Watch Live: Queen Elizabeth II https://digitalalaskanews.com/watch-live-queen-elizabeth-ii/
11m ago
Prince George and Princess Charlotte processing behind the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II
The queen’s great grandchildren, nine-year-old Prince Goerge and seven-year-old Princess Charlotte, will participate in the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, according to the order of service provided by Buckingham Palace.
The children of William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, joined the funeral procession along with other members of the royal family as their grandmother’s coffin entered Westminster Abbey.
Their younger brother, four-year-old Prince Louis, did not join in the procession, nor did the children of William’s brother Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
32m ago
Royal family members processing with queen’s coffin to Westminster Abbey
Members of Britain’s royal family, led by King Charles III, have begun the solemn procession with the late Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin from Westminster Hall, where she lied in state for four days, to Westminster Abbey, where her funeral will take place.
The king and his sons, William the Prince of Wales, and Harry the Duke of Sussex, and other family members followed the queen’s coffin out of Westminster Hall and watched as it was placed on the ceremonial State Gun Carriage of the Royal Navy. The same carriage was used for the funerals of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, King George V, King George VI, and Winston Churchill.
Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin is seen atop the State Gun Carriage outside Westminster Hall, flanked by members of the U.K. Royal Navy, with senior members of the royal family behind the coffin, ahead of the late monarch’s state funeral on September 19, 2022, in London, England. CBS News
The short route between the hall and the abbey was lined by members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.
The queen’s coffin was to be taken off the gun carriage and carried into the abbey for the funeral service just before 11 a.m. local time, or 6 a.m. eastern.
36m ago
U.S. President Joe Biden arrives at state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived at London’s Westminster Hall on Monday for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
Mr. Biden is one of a number of heads of state who is attending the funeral, along with members of other royal families and dignitaries from around the world. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are among dozens of other world leaders attending the funeral.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife Jill arrive at Westminster Abbey before the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II is carried inside for her funeral in central London, September 19, 2022. Bernat Armangue/AP
54m ago
U.K. Air Force member was last member of public to file past queen’s coffin
A British Royal Air Force service member was the last member of the public to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state at the U.K. Parliament’s Westminster Hall on Monday. Chrissy Heerey was at the very end of the behemoth, five-mile-long line that quickly became known simply as “The Queue.”
She got the last spot after joining the line for a second time early Monday, having already filed past the queen’s sealed coffin on Sunday evening.
The public viewing period ended just before 6:30 a.m. in London, or about 1:30 a.m. Eastern on Monday. Heerey was the last of the hundreds of thousands of people who waited for hours, sometimes a full day or and night, to pay their respects.
Christina (Chrissy) Heerey, the last member of the public to view the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II lying in state, walks through Westminster Hall in London, England on September 19, 2022. Lorena Sopena/Anadolu Agency/Getty
“I was the last person to pay my respects to the queen and it felt like a real privilege to do that,” Heerey told Britain’s PA news agency. “I’d already been round once, I went in at 1:15 this morning… It’s one of the highlights of my life, and I feel very privileged to be here.”
“The Queue” officially opened at 5 p.m. (noon Eastern) on Wednesday. The well-planned and orchestrated process was expected to allow some 750,000 people snake their way along the Thames River for four days, around the clock, to file past the queen’s coffin.
1:59 AM
Queen’s lying-in-state ends ahead of her funeral
A day packed with funeral events in London and Windsor began early on Monday when the doors of 900-year-old Westminster Hall were closed to mourners after hundreds of thousands had filed in front of Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin since Sept 14. Many had spent cold nights on line outdoors to pay their respects at the foot of the flag-draped coffin in a moving outpouring of national grief.
The closing of the hall marked the end of four full days of the coffin lying in state.
Monday has been declared a public holiday in honor of Elizabeth. Her funeral will be broadcast live to over 200 countries and territories worldwide and screened to crowds in parks and public spaces across the country.
Police officers from around the country will be on duty as part of the biggest one-day policing operation in London’s history.
Updated 9:30 AM / September 18, 2022
The extraordinary life of Queen Elizabeth II
Born in 1926, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was not originally destined to be queen. But that changed in 1936, when she was 10 years old, because her uncle Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and Elizabeth’s father, George VI, took his place.
Princess Elizabeth rapidly became a public favorite. During World War II, she not only worked to raise the country’s morale, appealing to her fellow Britons on public radio to “make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place,” she also served as a volunteer in the war effort, training as a mechanic in the women’s auxiliary service.
Queen Elizabeth II through the years 76 photos
Her marriage to Philip Mountbatten in 1947 give a war-weary country something to celebrate. Their children — Charles, then Anne, Andrew and Edward — re-established the royal line. Her marriage to Philip lasted 73 years, until his death on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99.
Elizabeth was just 25 years old when she inherited the throne in February 1952, following the death of her father, George VI. Her coronation in June of the following year was the first ever to be televised. Duty was the royal family’s ethos under Elizabeth’s reign.
“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service,” she once told the nation.
It was a promise she kept longer than any other British monarch in history, celebrating her Platinum Jubilee — 70 years on the throne — just months before her passing.
Queen Elizabeth honored with grand procession through London 03:58
Her reign, however, was not without controversy.
Some protesters question the value of monarchical traditions in modern times and the concentration of inherited wealth in the family’s hands. In lands once ruled by the British Empire, a painful history of subjugation and the brutality of the slave trade still resonate in current events.
Queen Elizabeth II’s unlikely path to the throne and the legacy she leaves behind 05:35
Updated 9:20 AM / September 18, 2022
Royal family’s new roles
A series of changes rippled through Britain’s royal family following the death of its longtime matriarch. Elizabeth’s eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, was immediately elevated to sovereign and became King Charles III. His wife, Camilla, took on the title queen consort.
Among Charles’ first official acts was to announce that his older son, Prince William, who is now next in line to the throne, has been granted the title Prince of Wales, the role Charles himself held for over 50 years. William’s wife Catherine is now Princess of Wales — a title last held by William and Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex — who gave up working as senior royals in 2020 and moved to California — did not receive new titles. But their children, 3-year-old Archie and 1-year-old Lilibet, gained the right to be known as prince and princess, as grandchildren of the monarch.
Britain’s royal line of succession 32 photos
Updated 9:15 AM / September 18, 2022
Significance of Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, where the funeral is being held, has a long and storied history. In addition to being the site of Britain’s monarchical coronations since 1066, the abbey was also a special place to the late queen herself during her 96-plus years.
In 1947, at the age of 21, then-Princess Elizabeth married Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey’s altar. Five years later, her coronation was held here.
The flag flies at half mast at Westminster Abbey in London on September 12, 2022, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8. MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images
Family joy would follow with the marriage of her grandson Prince William to Kate Middleton here in 2011. Family sorrow would come, too, with the funeral of the queen’s mother in 2002, and then the funeral of her husband in 2021.
The last time a monarch’s funeral was held in Westminster Abbey itself was 262 years ago, for King George II.
“This is Westminster Abbey. This is her majesty the queen. I think you can assume that you’re going to see tradition in action — great, living tradition in action,” said the Very Reverend Dr. David Hoyle, who was appointed by the queen as the 39th Dean of Westminster Abbey, and who is tasked with leading the service.
“I think the job of the abbey and the job of people like me, to some extent, is to keep stitching the story together — to say it’s possible in pretty divided and volatile times to say, all this can be gathered in, reconciled, redeemed, celebrated. So, her majesty’s reign, which starte...
Stocks Struggle Dollar Dominant Ahead Of Central Bank Binge
Stocks Struggle, Dollar Dominant Ahead Of Central Bank Binge https://digitalalaskanews.com/stocks-struggle-dollar-dominant-ahead-of-central-bank-binge/
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, September 16, 2022. REUTERS/Staff/File Photo
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S&P 500 futures slip, Nikkei futures down
Fed leads pack of central bank meetings
Market leaning toward 75 bp from Fed, PBOC eases
Dollar firm near multi-year highs
SYDNEY/LONDON, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Shares slipped and the dollar firmed on Monday as investors prepared for a packed week of central bank meetings which will see borrowing costs rise globally, with the chance of a super-sized hike in the United States.
Markets are fully priced for a rise in interest rates of 75 basis points from the Federal Reserve, with futures showing a 20% chance of a full percentage point.
They also indicate a real chance that rates could hit 4.5% as the Fed is forced to tip the economy into recession to subdue inflation. read more
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“Asset performance during this Fed tightening cycle is very different from the norm for other rate hike episodes,” said David Chao, a global market strategist at Invesco
“Usually, the Fed tightens when the economy is thriving and most assets do well. However, most assets have suffered this time, perhaps due to the surge in inflation and abrupt policy change.”
Trading was thinned on Monday with British markets closed for Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral, but Europe’s STOXX index (.STOXX) slid 0.5% to its lowest level in two months, dragged down by tech stocks. (.SX8P) read more
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), fell 0.6%, continuing to set new two-year lows, also hurt by declining tech stocks, (.HSTECH)
S&P 500 futures dipped 0.67%, while Nasdaq futures fell 0.83%.
As well as the specific rate hike, investors will be watching Fed members’ “dot plot” forecasts for rates, which are likely to be hawkish, putting the funds rate at 4-4.25% by the end of this year, and even higher next year.
That risk saw two-year Treasury yields surge 30 basis points last week alone to reach the highest since 2007 at 3.92%, so making stocks look more expensive in comparison and dragging the S&P 500 down almost 5% for the week.
Treasuries are not yet trading, as both Japan and Britain have public holidays, but euro zone borrowing costs edged higher, with the short-dated yields not far off their multi-year highs.
MARKETS SPLIT
It is not just in the U.S. that interest rate rises are expected. Most of the banks meeting this week – from Switzerland to South Africa – are expected to hike, with markets split on whether the Bank of England will go by 50 or 75 basis points. read more
China’s central bank went its own way, though, and cut a repo rate by 10 basis points to support its ailing economy, leaving blue chips (.CSI300) up 0.1%.
The other exception is the Bank of Japan, which has shown no sign of abandoning its uber-easy yield curve policy despite the drastic slide in the yen. read more
The dollar rose 0.34 to 143.45 yen on Monday , having backed away from the recent 24-year peak of 144.99 in the face of increasingly strident intervention warnings from Japanese policymakers.
The euro was 0.36% lower at $0.9978 , and sterling slipped 0.3% to $1.1390 just off Friday’s 37-year lows, with traders keeping an eye on new British finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng’s emergency mini-budget, expected Friday.
The dollar index , which measures the currency against six counterparts, was 0.4% stronger at 110.03.
“We expect the USD to keep trending higher this week to a new cyclical high above 110.8pts because of the deteriorating outlook for the world economy,” said CBA analysts in a note.
The ascent of the dollar and yields has been a drag for gold, which was down 0.55% $1,666 an ounce after hitting lows not seen since April 2020 last week.
Oil prices slid, pressured by the stronger dollar Brent crude fell 1.3% to $90.18. U.S. crude dropped 1.3%, to $83.97.
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Reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney and Alun John in London; Editing by Sam Holmes, Christian Schmollinger and Ed Osmond
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Boneta Mae O'Connor Obituary (1928 2022) Daily News-Miner
Boneta Mae O'Connor Obituary (1928 – 2022) Daily News-Miner https://digitalalaskanews.com/boneta-mae-oconnor-obituary-1928-2022-daily-news-miner/
Boneta Mae O’Connor passed in her sleep on Sept. 12. Born in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, the summer of 1928, a year prior to the Black Tuesday stock market crash generally recognized as the start of the world wide Great Depression and reaching adulthood through the rationing of World War II, her thriftiness in taking care of her home and family were forever shaped by her childhood years. Boneta’s earliest memories are of her family living in a dry shack on a sharecropper farm quite a distance from town. She was impressed by her father’s construction of a pulley system that led from the back porch, down the hill to a stream at the bottom to tip a bucket to fill with water for the household. A great deal of heave ho pulling brought the bucket of water to the back porch instead of trudging up a hill carrying it. The pulley water system was considered to be a great advance. The family ate primarily off of their garden of tomatoes and vegetables and sacks of rice. Her mother canned everything possible during their summer seasons to carry them through the winters.
When Boneta was 7, drought and the continuing effects of the Great Depression saw her family selling off all the possessions they could not fit into the back of an old, stake bed truck covered with a canvas canopy. The family of four children, their parents, an aunt, and five young men who paid a penny a mile each for the ride, piled themselves around their earthly belongings in the back of the truck and followed the crops north. (12 people!) Boneta remembers her mother and aunt cooking evening meals of biscuits and flour gravy in a giant sized cast iron skillet over camp fires as the group of migrant workers followed the crops north and then west. Stopping their journey wherever they could find work, the truck eventually delivered the family to Oregon. The aunt and extra young male workers had dropped off at various stops along their route across the nation.
In Oregon, the family of six lived in a house with no running water across the street from a farm where Boneta talked herself into being hired as a field worker and crop picker when she was about 10. Shepherded by her three-years-older big sister, Boneta earned money to buy her own clothes for school. She became particularly skilled at training hop vines. Lying flat on a high platform mounted on a wooden cart pulled by a horse through the rows of plants, her fingers coaxed the vines into climbing the trellis and strings overhead.
Boneta met her husband while working in the fields. They married a few weeks after Boneta graduated from high school and moved into a converted storage building behind her in-law’s home. Within two years the couple had produced their first daughter and built a new home. A second daughter was born shortly after settling into their new home, A year and a half later the couple sold that brand new home, consolidated all their possessions into a two wheel drive pickup truck pulling a sixteen foot camper trailer and headed north to Alaska. The family of four left Oregon in April, following the spring weather north. At the age of 22, Boneta arrived in Fairbanks with one year old and two year old daughters in a driving sideways snowstorm on May 10, 1952. By the winter of 52 they had built a wanigan up against the side of the travel trailer with sawdust insulation around the lower edges of the trailer to seal out the cold. Water was hauled into the kitchen in buckets to fill a barrel on the kitchen counter. The couple would live in the travel trailer/wanigan home for two winters before finishing construction on a two bedroom house. The house was too small before they moved in because they had also produced a third daughter.
Boneta was a skilled homemaker. One of the precious possessions hauled over the Alcan Highway was a Singer Featherlight sewing machine. She sewed most of the clothing her three daughters wore. Parkas were cut out of scratchy wool blankets from army surplus complete with fur ruffs, sturdy metal zippers, and miles of rick-rack trim. Boneta kept stitching as her girls grew from pint size parkas up through velvet prom dresses to satin and lace wedding gowns, She learned to sew skins, producing mukluks and mittens as well as parka ruffs. She learned to knit sweaters and jackets for her family. Boneta and her husband enjoyed square dancing and folk dancing. She stitched yards of swirling petticoats and ruffled dresses for herself, with matching shirts for Francis.
When deciding what was essential to pack into the truck and trailer traveling across Canada to Alaska, a pressure cooker was at the top of the list. She had been raised on food preserved from a family garden and she continued that in Alaska. A garden area was fenced in and soon producing most of the vegetables the family ate in a year. She planted raspberry canes enough to feed the family and all the neighbors who were willing to brave the thorny spines to pick. Wheel barrow loads of zucchini were placed out by the road to share with the community. There were lots of flowers around the edges of the garden, fences loaded with sweet peas, stakes holding up delphinium towering more than head high, and gladiola spikes.
A small woman, she was fiercely competitive in bowling and baseball. Angered at speeding cars she felt endangered her children she once pitched a rock at one and was relieved when it bounced off the column between two open windows. She earned her private pilot’s license and was a supporter in the local experimental aircraft association along with her husband.
With her husband frequently working out of town, Boneta followed him to live in camp work sites and villages until her girls reached high school age. Then she stayed in town with the girls, volunteering many hours with their school activities. After her girls married and left home Boneta again followed her husband to remote work sites as needed. She was an election worker for many, many years, served as a juror on multiple trials, and was active in the Pioneers of Alaska.
At 93, she is predeceased by both parents and all her three siblings. Her first born grandson, Adrian Francis Carr, also predeceased her. Boneta is survived by three daughters, Diana Carr (Bruce), and Sandra and Susan O’Connor. She has seven grandchildren: Francis (Jenn) Carr, George Carr, Kenneth (Tina) Carr, Erin Rae Tilly, Adrianne (Jared) Haines, Natasha and Nickoli O’Connor. She has five great grandchildren, Elida and Zachary Carr, Finnegan and Oliver Carr, and Grayson Haines.
The staff of the Pioneer Home are to be particularly commended for their eight years of increasingly more challenging care as Mom receded inexorably further into the brain deterioration of Alzheimer’s. Added to her illness, staff successfully managed the trials of three years of Covid among a large community of elderly and infirm. The staff are truly appreciated for their care of our mom.
Published by Daily News-Miner on Sep. 18, 2022.
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President Biden Warns That US Democracy Threatened But How Can He Save It?
President Biden Warns That US Democracy Threatened, But How Can He Save It? https://digitalalaskanews.com/president-biden-warns-that-us-democracy-threatened-but-how-can-he-save-it/
FILE – In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington. The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol. More than 870 people have been charged and more than 400 convicted. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is finding it’s easier to call out attacks on democracy than it is to stop them.
His fundamental rationale for running for president was that America’s democratic traditions were in jeopardy. Now, 20 months into his presidency, the dangers are worse, Biden’s warnings are more dire — and the limits of his own ability to fix the problem are clearer.
Former President Donald Trump continues to stoke the baseless claim the 2020 election was stolen, and even now advocates for the results in certain battleground states to be decertified even though the falsehood has been rejected by dozens of courts and his own attorney general. The belief has taken deep root in the Republican Party, with dozens of candidates insisting Trump was right.
Never in the country’s history have elections taken place in a climate where one party has so frontally questioned the integrity of the electoral process and actively sought to undermine confidence in it.
“We’re in an unprecedented situation here, because Biden’s predecessor has shown a flagrant disregard for the Constitution of the United States, and now others are following that path,” said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, who was among a group invited to the White House recently to put today’s challenges in historical context. “It could be dangerous.”
Biden has found, even with the megaphone of the White House, how difficult it is to counter the Trump-inspired narrative and the millions of Americans who believe it. Trump allies have been going around the country peddling lies about the 2020 election and conspiracy theories about voting machines, while Republican candidates running for office this year have repeated his lies to their supporters — messaging that has reached a broad audience.
Every U.S. president swears to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution, but even in ordinary times there is no playbook for safeguarding it. Biden took that oath as the nation was facing challenges unmatched since perhaps the U.S. Civil War, in the view of some historians.
In a speech earlier this month at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Biden described democracy as “under assault” and pledged that it was the work of his presidency to defend it. But he also said the solution had to be bigger than him, that he can’t turn back what he sees as a years-long backslide in American political norms on his own.
“For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it’s not,” he said. “We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it — each and every one of us.”
Has Biden himself done enough?
His efforts at persuasion don’t seem to have produced any significant shift in public opinion. His push for voting rights legislation in Congress has for the most part fallen short.
Beyond the president’s increasingly drastic warnings, White House officials point to the administration’s efforts to push voting rights safeguards through Congress and to their support for the Electoral Count Act, which would patch ambiguities exploited by Trump and his allies.
The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol. More than 870 people have been charged and more than 400 convicted.
The administration also has sounded the alarm about domestic extremist groups. There’s an increasing overlap with politically-fueled violence, as a growing number of ardent Trump supporters seem ready to strike back against the FBI or others they consider going too far in investigating the former president. And the National Security Council has developed a whole-of-government strategy to counter domestic violent extremism, which U.S. intelligence officials have called the top threat to homeland security.
While voters ranked threats to democracy as the most important issue ahead of the midterm elections, according to an NBC News poll late last month, the conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies have succeeded in sowing doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections in a large swath of the population.
Two-thirds of Republicans believe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected president, according to an AP-NORC poll. They believe that votes were switched, or voting machines were corrupted en masse, or that fake ballots were cast in favor of Biden because pandemic-era policies made voting too easy.
Trump-backed candidates are winning primaries and some will make it to Congress. In the states, nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race.
Candidates have signaled a new willingness to simply refuse to accept the results of their election if they lose. And election workers across the country are getting death threats and are harassed online, pushing many to just resign.
“We are very clearly playing with fire with some of the new tactics, allowing them to proliferate around the country,” said Matthew Weil, the executive director of our Democracy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. “It’s: ‘If my candidate loses, I’m going to drag it out as long as possible. I can cut the legs out from the person who beat me from taking office.’ That’s a new feature and it’s pretty dangerous. We can’t have an election system where people aren’t willing to lose.”
Checking the antidemocratic forces within Trumpism is not just a policy aim, it’s a political endeavor as well, and that clouds the picture.
Biden aides say his best tool to try to preserve democracy is his use of the bully pulpit to make clear to voters that they play a vital role in participating in the electoral process and deciding whom to put into positions of influence.
He isn’t the only one sounding the alarm. The special congressional committee investigating the 2021 Capitol insurrection has delivered the same message, as have election officials in states across the country, historians and other lawmakers.
Administration allies say Biden’s efforts have resonated with voters, particularly as Trump’s behavior in late 2020 and early 2021 has been cast into stark relief by the Jan. 6 committee.
But the president’s remarks have largely been dismissed by Republicans unwilling to break with Trump.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump supporters threatened to hang on Jan. 6 and who hid in a secure location beneath the building as the masses hunted him in the halls, decried Biden’s comments after the Philadelphia speech.
“Never before in the history of our nation has a president stood before the American people and accused millions of his own countrymen of being a ‘threat to this country,'” Pence said in remarks to conservatives.
Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called Biden “the most condescending president of my lifetime.”
The struggle the nation is facing goes beyond political parties, though. And “unless and until enough people fight for, protect and build our democracy, the fever we see today will continue,” said Melody Barnes, head of the University of Virginia Karsh Institute of Democracy.
The closest parallel, historians say, has been the Civil War era, when war broke out after Southern states wouldn’t recognize Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. Following the end of fighting, there was a continued refusal to accept the rule of law during Reconstruction, as deep racism and violence proliferated, resulting eventually in the Jim Crow era.
At critical moments, U.S. leaders have taken a stand to protect the nation from itself. George Washington left office to ensure future leaders would willingly walk away, too. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Watergate — a wildly unpopular move in 1974 but one that has since been viewed more as an effort to push the country past a national nightmare.
Biden, at a summit this past week on countering hate-fueled violence, talked about how good he felt years ago when he worked successfully with Republicans in the Senate to get the Voting Rights Act extended. “And I thought, well, you know, hate can be defeated,” he said.
“But it only hides,” he said with a sigh. “And when given any oxygen, it comes out from under the rocks.”
FILE – President Joe Biden speaks outside Independence Hall, Sept. 1, 2022, in Philadelphia. In the speech, Biden described democracy as “under assault” and pledged that it was the work of his presidency to defend it. But he also said the solution had to be bigger than him, that he can’t turn back what he sees as a years-long backslide in American political norms on his own. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
FILE – Security forces draw their guns as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol. More than 870 people have been charged and more than 400 convicted. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE – President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump continues to stoke the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and even now advocates for the results in certain battleground states to be decertified even though the falsehood has been rejected by dozens of courts and his own attorney general. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE – insurrections loyal to President Don...
Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review Of Clandestine Psychological Operations
Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review Of Clandestine Psychological Operations https://digitalalaskanews.com/pentagon-opens-sweeping-review-of-clandestine-psychological-operations/
The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.
Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, last week instructed the military commands that engage in psychological operations online to provide a full accounting of their activities by next month after the White House and some federal agencies expressed mounting concerns over the Defense Department’s attempted manipulation of audiences overseas, according to several defense and administration officials familiar with the matter.
The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
The researchers did not specify when the takedowns occurred, but those familiar with the matter said they were within the past two or three years. Some were recent, they said, and involved posts from the summer that advanced anti-Russia narratives citing the Kremlin’s “imperialist” war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict’s direct impact on Central Asian countries. Significantly, they found that the pretend personas — employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China — did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers.
Centcom, headquartered in Tampa, has purview over military operations across 21 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South Asia. A spokesman declined to comment.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that the military’s information operations “support our national security priorities” and must be conducted in compliance with relevant laws and policies. “We are committed to enforcing those safeguards,” he said.
Spokespersons for Facebook and Twitter declined to comment.
According to the researchers’ report, the accounts taken down included a made-up Persian-language media site that shared content reposted from the U.S.-funded Voice of America Farsi and Radio Free Europe. Another, it said, was linked to a Twitter handle that in the past had claimed to operate on behalf of Centcom.
One fake account posted an inflammatory tweet claiming that relatives of deceased Afghan refugees had reported bodies being returned from Iran with missing organs, according to the report. The tweet linked to a video that was part of an article posted on a U.S.-military affiliated website.
Centcom has not commented on whether these accounts were created by its personnel or contractors. If the organ-harvesting tweet is shown to be Centcom’s, one defense official said, it would “absolutely be a violation of doctrine and training practices.”
Independent of the report, The Washington Post has learned that in 2020 Facebook disabled fictitious personas created by Centcom to counter disinformation spread by China suggesting the coronavirus responsible for covid-19 was created at a U.S. Army lab in Fort Detrick, Md., according to officials familiar with the matter. The pseudo profiles — active in Facebook groups that conversed in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, the officials said — were used to amplify truthful information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the virus’s origination in China.
The U.S. government’s use of ersatz social media accounts, though authorized by law and policy, has stirred controversy inside the Biden administration, with the White House pressing the Pentagon to clarify and justify its policies. The White House, agencies such as the State Department and even some officials within the Defense Department have been concerned that the policies are too broad, allowing leeway for tactics that even if used to spread truthful information, risk eroding U.S. credibility, several U.S. officials said.
“Our adversaries are absolutely operating in the information domain,” said a second senior defense official. “There are some who think we shouldn’t do anything clandestine in that space. Ceding an entire domain to an adversary would be unwise. But we need stronger policy guardrails.”
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, which is part of the White House, declined to comment.
Kahl disclosed his review at a virtual meeting convened by the National Security Council on Tuesday, saying he wants to know what types of operations have been carried out, who they’re targeting, what tools are being used and why military commanders have chosen those tactics, and how effective they have been, several officials said.
The message was essentially, “You have to justify to me why you’re doing these types of things,” the first defense official said.
Pentagon policy and doctrine discourage the military from peddling falsehoods, but there are no specific rules mandating the use of truthful information for psychological operations. For instance, the military sometimes employs fiction and satire for persuasion purposes, but generally the messages are supposed to stick to facts, officials said.
In 2020, officers at Facebook and Twitter contacted the Pentagon to raise concerns about the phony accounts they were having to remove, suspicious they were associated with the military. That summer, David Agranovich, Facebook’s director for global threat disruption, spoke to Christopher C. Miller, then assistant director for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict, which oversees influence operations policy, warning him that if Facebook could sniff them out, so could U.S. adversaries, several people familiar with the conversation said.
“His point‚” one person said, “was ‘Guys, you got caught. That’s a problem.’ ”
Before Miller could take action, he was tapped to head a different agency — the National Counterterrorism Center. Then the November election happened and time ran out for the Trump administration to address the matter, although Miller did spend the last few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency serving as acting defense secretary.
With the rise of Russia and China as strategic competitors, military commanders have wanted to fight back, including online. And Congress supported that. Frustrated with perceived legal obstacles to the Defense Department’s ability to conduct clandestine activities in cyberspace, Congress in late 2019 passed a law affirming that the military could conduct operations in the “information environment” to defend the United States and to push back against foreign disinformation aimed at undermining its interests. The measure, known as Section 1631, allows the military to carry out clandestine psychologic operations without crossing what the CIA has claimed as its covert authority, alleviating some of the friction that had hindered such operations previously.
“Combatant commanders got really excited,” recalled the first defense official. “They were very eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.”
At the same time, the official said, military leaders were not trained to oversee “technically complex operations conducted by contractors” or coordinate such activities with other stakeholders elsewhere in the U.S. government.
Last year, with a new administration in place, Facebook’s Agranovich tried again. This time he took his complaint to President Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber, Anne Neuberger. Agranovich, who had worked at the NSC under Trump, told Neuberger that Facebook was taking down fake accounts because they violated the company’s terms of service, according to people familiar with the exchange.
The accounts were easily detected by Facebook, which since Russia’s campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election has enhanced its ability to identify mock personas and sites. In some cases, the company had removed profiles, which appeared to be associated with the military, that promoted information deemed by fact-checkers to be false, said a person familiar with the matter.
Agranovich also spoke to officials at the Pentagon. His message was: “We know what DOD is doing. It violates our policies. We will enforce our policies” and so “DOD should knock it off,” said a U.S. official briefed on the matter.
In response to White House concerns, Kahl ordered a review of Military Information Support Operations, or MISO, the Pentagon’s moniker for psychological operations. A draft concluded that policies, training and oversight all needed tightening, and that coordination with other agencies, such as the State Department and the CIA, needed strengthening, according to officials.
The review also found that while there were cases in which fictitious information was pushed by the military, they were the result of inadequate oversight of contractors and personnel training — not systemic problems, officials said.
Pentagon leadership did little with the review, two officials said, before Graphika and Stanford published their report on Aug. 24, which elicited a flurry of news coverage and questions for the military.
The State Department and CIA have been perturbed by the military’s use of clandestine tactics. Officers at State have admonished the Defense Department, “Hey don’t amplify our policies using fake personas, ...
Beatriz Roederer Obituary (2022) Daily News-Miner https://digitalalaskanews.com/beatriz-roederer-obituary-2022-daily-news-miner/
Longtime Fairbanks resident Beatriz Susana Roederer passed away in the morning of Sept. 12, 2022, four days shy of her 93rd birthday, after a year in loving care at Frasier Meadows’ Summit Center in Boulder, Colorado.
She died in silence and in peace – after a lifelong fight for truth and loyalty to family, friends and to both of her countries, past and present.
She is survived by her loving husband, Juan; her younger brother, Carlos Cougnet (Elizabeth) of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and their large family; by her four children, Ernesto (José Piedra), Irene, Silvia (Leslie Tung), Mario (Nicole Poulton) and daughter-in-law Laurel Lagenaur; and by her grandchildren, Marika, Zora, Anita, Monica and Alex.
Beatriz was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, to her Argentine parents Fausto and Susana, but grew up in Argentina from age 1. In 1945 she met her future husband, Juan, in high school in Buenos Aires; she studied physics and mathematics at the local university and obtained a Master’s degree two days before her wedding to Juan on Dec. 20, 1952.
She was one of the first four researchers hired by the then brand new Argentine Atomic Energy Commission, working on high-energy fundamental particle physics. Her contributions were notable: lead author of the first ever physics research article published by an Argentine team in an international peer-reviewed journal; single author of a major paper on high energy particle physics; thesis director of a graduate student of the local university on nuclear reactions recorded at the Bevatron accelerator in Berkeley, California.
All this, while creating a beautiful family. After the third child, born in 1958, she changed her job to full-time mother. In June 1966, the political landscape in Argentina turned dangerous to defenders of democracy and obliged Beatriz and Juan to emigrate to the U.S. with their four children and three surviving parents.
Here, Beatriz was firmly in charge of all the logistic operations of the move, from house and car sale, to transportation, to home rentals, car and furniture purchases in Denver, to placing the kids in schools, attending PTA meetings, etc. – on top of cooking and organizing the daily family dinner for nine!
In 1977 came a call to Alaska, for Juan to become director of the world-renowned Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Another big emigration, to a fascinating place; this time, only the youngest child and Juan’s mother joined the couple in the move. Beatriz burst into town full of energy to contribute to the cultural, social and political life of Alaska: an amazing, still-young and challenging state.
She served as member and financial officer of the League of Women Voters, the Lutheran church, the Fairbanks Symphony Association, a tax consultant, and a Teamsters election supervisor in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields.
Indeed, on multiple occasions, when the powerful Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens happened to see her face in an airport or in the crowd at a meeting, he would shout aloud to the puzzlement of many; “How are ya, Beatriz?”
After Juan’s retirement from teaching, Beatriz started accompanying him more often on his many science and policy-related trips all over the world; many of them VIP tours at the invitation of the host institutions – in China, Tibet, India, Japan, South Africa, Russia, and, of course, Argentina and Europe.
Whenever people asked her what she thought her greatest achievement in life had been, she never hesitated: “Producing four children with many advanced degrees, who, despite their concomitant workload, love and help each other no matter what.”
After 37 years in Alaska, her children persuaded Beatriz and Juan to move back to Colorado, which they had loved for a long time; they joined Frasier Meadows, a wonderful place for retired intellectuals.
It was music that had brought Beatriz and Juan together.
In the hot summer that followed Christmas 1945 Beatriz used to come up to the loft to sit next to Juan on the organ bench in the Buenos Aires German Evangelical Church while he was practicing. She assisted by turning pages and pulling the stops.
And in a miraculous and emotionally overwhelming way, it was music that took them asunder: beautiful organ music suddenly flooded the air after Juan had taken his last look at her angelical face in eternal sleep. It came from TVs broadcasting the service in Edinburgh’s Cathedral for Queen Elizabeth II.
Little did that organist know that he was playing a requiem for two queens.
Published by Daily News-Miner on Sep. 18, 2022.
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Oil Dips On Recession Fears; Supply Concerns Limit Declines
Oil Dips On Recession Fears; Supply Concerns Limit Declines https://digitalalaskanews.com/oil-dips-on-recession-fears-supply-concerns-limit-declines/
Crude oil storage tanks are seen in an aerial photograph at the Cushing oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, U.S. April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Drone Base
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SINGAPORE, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Oil prices dipped on Monday as fears of a global recession caused concerns that fuel demand growth will slow, though supply worries ahead of the European Union embargo on Russian oil in December limited declines.
Brent crude futures for November settlement fell 46 cents, or 0.5%, to $90.89 a barrel by 0701 GMT.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for October delivery was at $84.46 a barrel, down 65 cents, or 0.8%. The October WTI contract expires on Tuesday and the more active November contract as at $84.12, down 64 cents.
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Both contracts climbed more than $1 earlier on Monday. Last week, oil futures slid more than 1% on concerns that another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserves could slow global growth.
The dollar took a bullish turn on Monday as investors braced for a packed week of central bank meetings that are certain to see borrowing costs rise across the globe, with some risk of a super-sized hike in the United States. A stronger U.S. dollar makes dollar-denominated commodities more expensive for holders of other currencies. read more
Despite fears of dampening fuel demand, ongoing supply concerns capped price declines.
“The market still has the start of European sanctions on Russian oil hanging over it. As supply is disrupted in early December, the market is unlikely to see any quick response from U.S. producers,” ANZ analysts said Monday.
Easing COVID-19 restrictions in China could also provide some optimism, the analysts said.
China has started easing COVID curbs in Chengdu, a southwestern city of more than 21 million people, which has helped to soothe concerns about demand in the world’s No. 2 energy consumer. China’s gasoline and diesel exports also rebounded, easing high local inventories, after Beijing issued fresh quotas. read more
Meanwhile, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s (KPC) chief executive said on Sunday its customers still demand the same volumes with no change. The Gulf state currently produces more than 2.8 million barrels per day of oil in accordance with its OPEC quota, he said. read more
Oil loading and exporting operations from Iraq’s Basrah oil terminal are back to their normal rates on Saturday, Basrah Oil Company said, a day after being halted due to a spillage which has now been contained. read more
In Nigeria, Shell’s 200,000 barrels per day Bonga deep water storage and offloading vessel is scheduled for maintenance in October, a spokesperson said on Sunday.
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Reporting by Florence Tan and Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Shri Navaratnam and Christian Schmollinger
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Utah Polygamist Sect Accused Of Indoctrination Rape And Child Marriage
Utah Polygamist Sect Accused Of Indoctrination, Rape And Child Marriage https://digitalalaskanews.com/utah-polygamist-sect-accused-of-indoctrination-rape-and-child-marriage/
Ten former members of a Utah-based polygamist sect known as the Kingston Group are pursuing punitive damages against the organization after they say it subjected them to years of unpaid labor, sexual violence and human trafficking.
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the sect’s ex-members allege: “It is largely through … illegal marriage practices that the [Kingston Group] is able to unlawfully make girls and their children religious martyrs and traffic them for sexual and labor purposes.”
The lawsuit contains explicit details of how Kingston Group leaders – who also own and operate several businesses and schools in the suburbs of Utah’s capital, Salt Lake City – allegedly arrange incestuous and sometimes underage marriages between teenage girls and adult men with exalted status to produce hundreds of children.
The suit alleges episodes of rape aimed at forcing pregnancy, group members covering up years of sexual abuse and indoctrinating children in elementary school about plural marriage.
The plaintiffs’ attorney, Roger Hoole, declined to elaborate beyond his clients’ lawsuit or respond to requests for interviews with former group members.
In a response to the allegations against it, the Kingston Group – also known officially as the Davis County Cooperative Society and internally as “the Order” – said its current policy prohibits plural marriage for members under 18. They also claimed to believe that marriage is a personal choice that should not be coerced.
“Members are encouraged to prayerfully seek guidance from their parents or through personal inspiration, but ultimately, the decision must be their own,” the group said in its response to the lawsuit.
The group added: “Once an individual has made a decision on who to marry, members are encouraged to seek the blessing of their parents, family and/or church leaders, but to say that one individual chooses or heavily influences who will marry who is entirely inaccurate.”
Nine of the plaintiffs claim the Kingston Group made them begin working during their elementary or preschool days through their late teenage years. None of them received a paycheck, they allege.
In her complaint, Amanda Rae Grant claims she was assigned to work in her early teens at Advance Copy, where wedding announcements and invitations were printed, because “wedding pictures of little girls marrying men in incestuous or plural marriages could not be printed at Walmart”.
Another plaintiff, Jeremy Roberts, said he started working four hours a day – year-round – at a farm run by the Order when he was seven or eight. He allegedly was told that his hourly pay was $3.23.
By the time he was 12, Roberts said, he was working 12-hour shifts at a mine the Order ran.
The Kingston Group denied allegations that children worked for their businesses. The group also said that its business owners are strongly encouraged to follow all applicable laws when hiring, employing and compensating their employees.
‘Bleeding the Beast’
The allegations facing the Kingston Group come after the state of Utah effectively decriminalized polygamy between consenting adults in 2020, making plural marriage an infraction similar in gravity to a speeding ticket. However, if a spouse is coerced or underage in a plural marriage in Utah, it becomes a felony.
It marked the latest chapter in Utah’s long, complicated history with polygamy. To help Utah achieve statehood, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – issued a manifesto ending polygamy as a practice in 1890.
However, more than 130 years later, polygamist sects exist in close-knit settlements throughout the state, including the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), run by its imprisoned leader and convicted rapist Warren Jeffs.
Pro-polygamy groups estimate there are about 30,000 to 40,000 people in Utah who live in polygamist communities. The Kingston Group declined to confirm its membership numbers.
While the Kingston Group, founded in 1935, is not affilated with the FLDS, members practice a fundamentalist version of Mormonism that involves polygamy. Members are primarily born into the organization whose leader Paul Elden Kingston is known as “the Man in the Watch Tower”.
The lawsuit against the group is not the first time it has faced media scrutiny or legal peril. In August, the Utah state charter school board mandated that the Kingston Group-run charter school, Vanguard Academy, replace all nine members of its governing board after various and repeated violations.
Officials alleged that school leaders hired Kingston-connected businesses and paid them with taxpayer money, the Salt Lake City television news station KUTV reported.
Vanguard Academy’s leaders sued state charter school officials in response, and a judge issued a restraining order that kept the targeted governing board members in their positions. The school faces a three-month probation during which it is required to rectify its issues or face closure.
Meanwhile, in July 2019, four members of the Kingston family pleaded guilty to fraud charges after federal authorities established that an Order-run business – Washakie Renewable Energy – stole a half billion dollars worth of biodiesel tax credits and laundered it through shell companies.
The lawsuit cites Washakie Renewable Energy as an example of the group’s many attempts to defraud the government.
“At times, the Order has members forge and fabricate documents, often against their will, to further [their] self-interests,” the lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiffs’ complaint added those practices facilitated so-called attempts by the Kingston Group to “bleed the beast” – a term used in polygamous communities to describe how they can benefit by defrauding the government and its taxpayers.
The Kingston Group said the concept of “bleeding the beast” is “abhorrent” and was “never a tenet” of its organization.
The group argued that its values exact self-sufficiency and that per capita its members save or contribute more to their community than the average citizen does.
‘Pure Kingston Blood’
However, the fraud accusations confronting the Kingston Group extend well beyond Washakie and other Order-run businesses.
The lawsuit explains how the birth certificates of multiple plaintiffs failed to list their biological fathers, so those men could escape the legal consequences inherent to having multiple – and often underage – wives.
Two of the plaintiffs – Michelle Afton Michaels, 22, and LaDonna “Blaklyn” Ruth Lancaster, 18 – share the same father, Jesse Orvil Kingston, the lawsuit alleges. The suit alleges Kingston family members try to preserve their blood purity – which they refer to as “Pure Kingston Blood” – by marrying and procreating with other Kingstons.
The group has called the “Pure Kingston Blood” term “fringe, unfamiliar, and somewhat offensive” for its members, and it rejects any preference for any particular family or bloodline.
Jesse Orvil Kingston is not listed on either Michaels’ or Lancaster’s birth certificates, according to the lawsuit, which additionally accuses him of fathering more than 300 children with 14 wives.
The Guardian typically does not identify people who allege to be a victim of sexual violence, but the publicly available lawsuit identifies Michaels, Lancaster and other plaintiffs by name.
Amanda Rae Grant alleges her father is Verl Johnson, accusing him of marrying 17-year-old Lori Peterson and two others to produce 33 children.
Instead of being listed on her birth certificate, Grant says the document listed a fictitious father called Kyle Grant.
The lawsuit claims that Utah state officials went so far as to track down a man named Kyle Grant for the purposes of collecting child support payments, but they concluded he was not Amanda Rae Grant’s father.
“This was told as a funny story in Amanda’s family,” the lawsuit alleges.
The Kingston Group argued that it is parents’ prerogative “to file birth records for their children how they choose within the bounds of the law”.
“This is especially true of the mother, who has the legal right to establish paternity or not to establish paternity at the time of filing,” the Kingston Group said in a statement. The statement added that the group “has not issued any specific guidance for members pertaining to birth certificates, or medical records, but encourages its members to follow the law”.
One of the lawsuit’s more shocking allegations centers on claims from plaintiff Jenny Kingston, 25, that her parents sent her to a rehabilitation center named Lifeline for Youth for six months to punish her for resisting her marriage to Jacob Daniel Kingston Jr, the son of the Washakie energy company’s boss.
She accuses Kingston Jr of physically overpowering and raping her to try to get her pregnant. Group members knew of the abuse, her complaint alleges, but did not report or stop it. Instead, she claims they used group money to get her in vitro fertilization treatment.
She later fled the group with her twin children.
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